Hard Lessons
by violaqu33n
Summary: Michael, Fiona, and Sam take a new job helping a girl looking for her kidnapped sister. Will they be able to help her, or can she help them in return? Mi/Fi, some language.
1. Chapter 1

_As a spy, you tend to follow a few basic guidelines. One of the most obvious rules is make sure that you don't have an attachment between yourself and the client. Or that one of your team mate gets attached. _

"Hey Mikey!" I groaned. Whenever Sam called me Mikey, it meant 'I need a favor' or 'you can buy me a beer, right?'. And since he wasn't hounding me for beer, it meant a favor and favors equal clients.

"Mikey, you got a minute? This is Kim, she needs some help with a bunch of real nasty guys. And between you and me, she's willing to fork over a lot of cash for a little rescuing." Sam pointed to a leggy redhead leaning against the bar of Carlito's, nursing a peach mojito. Behind my shades, I rolled my eyes and nodded. Sam beckoned the girl over and she sat down in Fi's usual spot. I looked her over. She was young, not a day over twenty, and cute in a little-girl way.

Sam nodded to her. "Ok Kim, tell Michael what you told me." Kim fiddled with her hair and looked somewhere over my shoulder. She was pretty uncomfortable, so I took off my shades and tried to smile encouragingly. I doubt it helped much.

"My dad's a drunk and he lost his job and we had no money for his fix, so he sent me and my sister Clara out on the streets to get whatever we could, and said he'd kill us if we came back with nothing. And...one day Clara met some guy downtown that said he could help her get some money, really quietly. She said yes and he-he-he just took her and now I don't know where she is!" And she started sobbing, big loud boo-hoos.

Sam, despite all his 'expertise' with ladies, was pretty stunned when Kim started bawling, so we both just sat there like a couple of idiots until Fi swooped down out of nowhere and wrapped her arm around Kim and gave her a napkin to dry her eyes.

"Kim, right? Ok, why don't you come stay with me until we can get this mess all sorted out okay? Sam can drive you to Michael's house and help you get settled in, while Michael and I will start looking for the men that took your sister. It's going to be alright, I promise."

Kim nodded and coughed a little while I glared at Fi. She knows better than to just make promises to people, especially when this kid is obviously terrified and dying to get any kind of good news, with nothing to back them up with.

As Sam led Kim into the Charger, Fi and I walked to the Saab and once I was sure Kim was out of earshot, I opened my mouth to start to grill her, but she beat me to it.

"Michael, that girl is eighteen and terrified! Her father sent them out on the street to hustle for his booze, and, well, I'm not surprised that Clara got picked up by a pimp. All we have to do is find out who and where she's working and we go. It can't take more than a couple of days. So I told her it's gonna be alright, big deal. It wouldn't kill you to be a little more tactful with some of your clients." She looked at me like a schoolmarm and I was utterly stumped.

She has to be a witch. No one can just silence me like that without having made some kind of deal with the devil.

"Besides," said The Witch, "you remember my last cover, when I was Kim?" I winced. I had to slap Fi right in the face to maintain a cover. In hindsight, it probably saved both our lives, but she never fully got over it, even when I apologized again and again. Evidentially, witches can hold a grudge.

"Fi, you know I did that because Natalie was a crazy psychopath that was going to put a bullet in your head the second you took those cuffs off, and judging from the way you two were getting all cozy, you'd be dead if we hadn't gotten there." Fi hmphed and tossed her hair, hitting me in the face. Charming.

She turned to me. "So, what's the plan? I'm all for some well placed C4 and some gasoline, but if Clara's at the pimp's place than that's a bit dangerous. Although if we get her out quickly, I can still make something work." I rolled my eyes.

"No Fi, we want to keep this small. I know Sam said Kim has the money to pay but I'm on a budget." Fi sighed and stretched, pulling her dress up around her thighs. I managed to politely look away, but I still saw the smirk on her face.

"Michael, for an international spy and all the hype that goes with it, you can be have all the flavor of vanilla ice cream. Where's the excitement, the thrill? Live a little, Michael." She started tracing a pattern on my leg and I had to close my eyes and count to ten before I could look at her again.

"Fi..." and of course my phone rang. I glanced from her to my phone and saw the frustration in her eyes and the set of her mouth. I mouthed Sorry and flipped open my phone. "Yeah Sam?"

"Mike, we have a problem. Whoever kidnapped Carla just was waiting for us as we went by her place to get her stuff and took a few shots at us." I waited for Sam to continue but he was silent.

"And...?" I could hear the squeal of tires in the background and Sam swearing. "Sam, what the hell is going on?!"

There was a whimper and a muffled scream. Sam breathed heavily into the phone. "It's Kim, Mikey. She got shot in the crossfire. I don't know if she's gonna make it all the way to the loft."


	2. Chapter 2

_When you work with gunshot wounds, sometimes you have to ignore the pain of the moment and worry about whether or not the patient will make it till morning, even if it means you hurt them right now. _

If Sam was going to bring Kim to the loft, we had to be prepared to do a some serious meatball surgery. Fi sped through downtown, pressed fifty dollars in my hand and screeched to a stop next to a drugstore.

"I'll stop by my place and pick up some gauze and tweezers. Get some booze, painkillers and a sewing kit." She looked worried, a bad sign, especially coming from Fi. "Michael, if Kim's seriously hurt, we'll have to take her to the hospital and then we might be too late to help Clara."

I didn't want to think about that. I got out, got the stuff, ignored the creepy looks from the meth head at the register, and got back in. Fi zoomed back to the loft and parked next to Sam's car. I looked in the backseat. It was stained with blood and there was a trail of it leading from the car door up the steps and inside. If Kim lived, I was going to make her clean all of it once the job was over.

Fi breathed a small sigh of relief. If Kim was bleeding this much when she had got to the loft, she was most likely still alive. I bounded up the stairs, with Fiona hot on my heels. Sam opened the door, looking dishevelled and covered in blood splatters.

"Get in, get in. I'm fine, but the kid's pretty torn up, so I put her on the bed and you're gonna need some new sheets. She passed out from the pain a few minutes ago, so if you're ready to play surgeon, it shouldn't be too painful for her. She got hit twice in the leg and another bullet ricocheted into her arm. Mike, she lost a lot of blood, so we don't have a ton of time if you wanna get a move on."

Kim was breathing shallowly on the bed, unconscious from the pain and shock. Her left leg was a mess, the blood staining her shorts a dark purple. Her arm was only slightly better, and I could tell that the bullet hadn't gone in as deeply. I picked up a knife from the counter and passed it to Fi.

"Fi, can you take out the two in her leg? You're a better surgeon than I am and we need to tie off those wounds before she dies of blood lose." Fi rolled her eyes(because field medicine is never pleasant for the patient or the doctor) and yanked Kim's shorts off to better see the gunshots. I said a silent thanks that Kim wasn't like Fi and actually thought wearing underwear was a good idea, and then I started on her arm.

I_f you're a spy, you have a pretty high pain tolerance. Consequently, if you're doing home surgery in the intelligence field, you're generally tending to someone with the same pain tolerance. This is great for getting the job done, but when you need to operate on a civilian, you forget that they might not have the same threshold. Even unconscious. _

So when Kim started screaming, while still asleep, we were all surprised. Fi slapped her cheeks lightly and she opened her eyes. Sam shoved the whiskey under her nose. "Drink it fast, kiddo, you're not going to want to remember this clearly." She clenched her teeth and chugged. I was impressed that someone her size could hold her liquor so well and also grateful because it would knock her out a lot faster. Eventually, her eyes closed and Fi and I started cutting and digging, trying to get out any bullet fragments.

By the time Sam had left to check out Kim's house again to find any renegade gangsters, she had stopped bleeding and it looked like we had finally got all the bullets and tiny bone chips out. Fi wiped off her forehead with a torn piece of her shirt and smiled fondly at our ragged patient.

"She's a lucky girl, she was out cold for most of the digging." She leaned over and pushed back some of Kim's hair that had fallen out. "My God, she looks like Claire. I have this picture, from just before she got taken and they could be twins. I miss her so much sometimes." She looked at me with wide eyes and I felt immediately guilty for never asking Fi about what happened to Claire, for not even being concerned about it till Sean had mentioned it. I knew that she had a sister, had even seen the grave.

"Fi. Fi, if you want to talk..." I frowned, uncertain how to keep going with this. For all the specialized training spies get, there isn't a chapter on comfort and consoling because of long-dead siblings. That's partially because we're most likely the ones killing the siblings, partially because we're not supposed to get involved.

And since I was never especially good at talking, this is triply awkward. So I decided against opening my mouth and revealing what a complete idiot I become around Fi, and slipped an arm around Fi's narrow shoulders, pulling her into my chest. She sniffed a few times into my shirt, but eventually pulled away.

"I've got to go Michael. Make sure Kim doesn't get attacked again, or I will kick your ass, understood?" I nodded, and she left, leaving the smell of citrus and sodium nitrate in her wake. At the sound of the door slamming shut in Fi's wake, Kim groggily opened her eyes and surveyed the loft. She started coughing and I passed her a yogurt for lack of a glass of water. She chugged it, no spoon needed, and flopped back on the bed.

"Thanks. Do you have any morphine, codine, oxycotin, ibuprofen, acetominephin, whatever?" I shook my head, and Little Miss Pharmacist closed her eyes and went back to sleep. I decided to call Sam and see if he could pick up some painkillers from my hypocondriac mother and if he had found out anything about who would shoot a teenage girl at her own home. And it turned out, he had.

"Mikey, I don't know how this girl's sister got mixed up with these guys, but they're bad news. I called an old buddy down at the station and apparently the biggest escort service is a front for some punkass named Jones. He's the big dog who's running all the girls around Miami and it sounds to me like he does not want to let anyone get between him and his business. I told Kim that she should talk to the cops about this kinda thing, but she said that they wouldn't be able to do anything, and I can see why. They've been trying to get something on him, but he's good, Mikey, keeps everything clean and gives just enough to look legit." I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to stop the growing headache.

"Sam, I know Fi won't like the idea, but maybe this time, we can just get Clara and get out without taking down an entire underworld corporation. We get Clara, take her to Kim, give them some money and they get out of town. Quick and easy. I'll even let you be the one that goes to get Clara, play the aging john looking for someone to treat him nice. Will you help me sell this to Fi?"

Sam laughed. "Sure brother, more fun for me. Ask Kim to show you a picture of Clara when she wakes up and you'll be kicking yourself for the rest of the day." Oh no. Maybe it would be a better idea to send Fi in as some kind of horny lesbian. I was just beginning to imagine how unbelievably _hot_ that would be when the phone rang.

"Michael. I have wonderful news for you. I got a job." I frowned. After working so long with Potential Lesbian/Witch/Fi, I could tell, even through a phone, when she was about to do something dangerous, stupid, or potentially fatal. This one sounded like it had the makings of all three.

"Fi, we're already on a job with Kim, you can't just go get another one to pay for another pair of shoes. If you divide yourself up, we won't be able to get anything done." Fi laughed and I knew this was going to be bad.

"Don't be stupid Michael, this is for Kim's job. I just got hired to work for the delightful Mr. Jones, the one that took Clara. Aren't you excited for me?"


	3. Chapter 3

_When you're a spy, a lot of things stop surprising you. The Russian mob boss who says you're friends suddenly tries to kill you, your mom is okay with you hiding mysterious strangers in her garage, and of course, people keep trying to kill you. And there are certain things you can do to deal with these things, like keeping a gun on you at all time and practising dodging bullets and phone calls. But there's basically nothing you can do when you sort-of-sometimes-depends-on-the-day-ex-girlfriend tells you that she's become a whore. That one can surprise you every time. _

"Can you say that again for me? I must have water in my ears or something, maybe a yogurt overdose, because I thought you just said you got a job as a _whore_!" Fi rolled her eyes at my "hysteria", as she called it. I preferred to call it "rational reaction".

"Michael, calm down. I'm not going to actually sleep with any of those toads that troll for barely legal girls with tramp stamps. I'll just work my way into Jones' little business, if it can even be called that, and then beat the living hell out of him. Then I rescue Clara. There, job done." Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"No Fi, no assassinations. We just need to get Clara and send her and Kim on a bus to Phoenix or somewhere several states away. I'm sure Seattle's lovely this time of year. Besides, if we take out Jones, his number two guy will just step up and keep running the show. We can either go in and plan a long, messy takedown, or, and I'm a big fan of this other option, we can get Clara and go. This is a big organization they're running here, they won't miss one girl when they have another hundred that can do the exact same thing. Sam said he knows where Jones is working and he'll request Clara and grab her and bring her back here." She pouted and I could see all the explosions that weren't going to happen running through her head.

"I'm sorry to tell you, but we won't need any C4 for this job. We might not even need any guns, although I know Sam's going to bring one anyway." Fi looked at me like I was a stupid child that needed a smack. "Michael, please. There is always a need for C4."

Over on the mattress, Kim had started coughing and I grabbed a yogurt and sat next to her on the bed. "Hey kid. How do you feel?" She looked at me with the same look Fi had given me only moments ago. "Like I just got shot in the leg. Gimme that yogurt. Or a Vicodin, I'm not choosy." Fi and I exchanged a glance.

Fi walked over to Kim and smiled like a mother to a guilty child. "Kim, are you not telling us something, darling? Because the second you woke up, you asked Michael for about ten pills that I haven't even heard of. Is there something we should know about?" For all her ball busting attitude, Fi knows how to butter people up and make them feel like they to tell her whatever it is she needs to know. I prefer the tried and true interrogation method with potential assault, but that doesn't always go over so well with suburban teenagers recovering from multiple gunshot wounds with a sister that was just kidnapped. Kim looked over nervously from me to Fi and then back down at her leg.

"A few years ago, I was in the hospital because I broke my arm in three places. It took a long time to heal and they gave me a ton of morphine for the pain. Now I just get a little... tense if I don't have something." Great. So the client, who bled all over my sheets, is actually a drug addict. My first thought was to set her up with Sugar, but then I remembered the reason she came to Sam for help in the first place. So then my second instinct was to just kick her out and slam the door.

"You were the one that sent your sister out to get money for your fix. And when she didn't come home, you did your own deals, which is how you got the money that Sam told me about. And now she's in deep with some pimp because of you and you want our help. She's probably been working for Jones for months before you got desperate enough to look for her. Because getting a buzz is more important to you than your own sister." Kim started crying again. I didn't give a damn about how she felt, but Fi coughed and when I turned around, she glared at me and nodded towards the balcony.

"Michael, this girl is not some shady character that sold her sister out for a good time. She's in trouble and feels bad about it. So she's a drug addict, so is half the city of Miami. You helped Sugar and he was definitely more of a bastard than Kim. So you be nice and apologize for what you said, you understand?" And she marched back inside and started talking to Kim in a low, steady voice. I waited out on the balcony till Fi had stopped talking and went inside to follow orders.

"Kim, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry about what I said before. I know you weren't trying to get your sister in trouble and that you really want to help her. So I'm gonna help you, but you have to help yourself and get clean. Now tomorrow, we're gonna try to get Clara back, so I need you to show me what she looks like so we can find the right girl. You got a picture of her or something?" Kim sniffed and pointed over to her bag on the floor.

Fi rummaged through it and pulled out a wallet sized picture of another redhead that vaguely resembled Kim. Sam was right; Clara was a knockout, even by Miami standards. Imagine Eva Longoria and Angelina Jolie hooked up and then had a baby with Megan Fox. With red hair. Fi looked over to me and I realized(too late, of course) that I was actually looking stunned by a picture. I yawned, trying to cover, but I could tell Fi didn't buy it for a second. She waved the picture towards Kim.

"So this is Clara?" Kim nodded and sat up slowly. "Clara was always the pretty one and I was the bookish one. Everyone would make that face, especially your friend Sam. I thought his jaw might fall off." Fi crossed her arms. "How predictable. Michael, I think Kim would be better off staying at your mom's house, far away from Jones' guys and anyone that might've followed Sam's car back from the shooting. And less likely for future weasels like Strickler to pay you visits and shooting her to clear up your schedule."

I nodded. That seemed sensible, plus my mom would probably have painkillers that Kim could actually use. Even prescription popping druggies need some medication when they take a few bullets. Who knows, maybe a parental figure would be good for Kim(but after all the good it did for me, I'm not holding my breath). I threw the keys of the Charger to Fi and picked up Kim and carried her down the steps. If Mom still had Dad's old wheelchair, which she made me scrub for an hour after I used it to kidnap Victor("Because I don't know what kind of things you do with my stuff, running around with guns and all that"), we could let Kim move around the house, but also confine her from following us. And if you've ever been stalked by a guilt-ridden teen, you know it's something you want to avoid.

While Fi dropped Kim off, I decided to call Sam and tell him that he wouldn't get to play 'aging john trolling for amazingly beautiful girl' since Fi had made a career switch. He took it well.

"Mikey, you little girlfriend has potentially ruined my night of boozing with a gorgeous girl and she is gonna have to make it up to me." I winced and Sam caught the slip. "Okay, definitely not like that. But what're we gonna do now? Clara's smoking. Fi's smoking, and they're gonna be getting a lot of customers unless we do something to intervene, which we're sort of obligated to do, for the benefit of the greater Miami male population. We can't just let Fi become a skank, she'd break the neck of any bastard that was dumb enough to try. I have an idea, but it's a bit...out there, if you wanna hear it." I rubbed my neck subconsciously and waited for Sam to explain the plan, when I realized I had already thought of it myself and discarded it because it was too terrible to think about.

Oh no. Oh no, Sam don't say it, don't say it's the only option left. Please Sam. Please. "Mike, I think we're gonna both have to go undercover for this. I get Clara and you get Fi. It's the only option that I can really see having a chance in hell. Normally, I'd just tell Fi to quit, but we can't just pass on this opportunity. How soon do you wanna do this?" Sam, you bastard.

I tried to suppress how pissed I was at both Fi and Sam, her for getting us into this mess, and Sam for proving that the only option was to whore Fi out, literally. "We really need to do this tonight. If Jones makes Fi work, we need to make sure that she only gets one customer so she can't tear out anyone's throat."

I didn't mention the fact that I would rather drop dead than leave Fi in a sleazy hooker gig for more than one night.

Sam must enjoy screwing me over. "I'm sorry Mike, I really can't make it tonight. I have this big meeting with the feds, something about my pension checks and if I don't show, they'll start investigating me, which means something on you too buddy. Would tomorrow be okay?"

About as okay as I'd be joining a cult. "Sure Sam, I understand. So we need to find a guy for Fi, someone that looks believable but can be trusted not to actually do something. How many guys do we know?"

"Barry?"

"He'd actually do it. Or at least try."

"Nate?"

"Nate would try to rip off Jones at the first shot, and I am not getting my brother involved in this. Just consider the kind of hell we'd be in if my mom found out we sent Nate into a prostitution ring."

"Seymour, you remember, the arms dealer?"

I paused and waited for Sam to work that out himself. "Never mind, it would be better to let Nate go. What about that ex-boyfriend, the nice guy with the ambulance? The soup guy...Campbell. He looks a little too clean to be trolling for whores, but I'm sure we could tell him what to do, maybe set him up with a headset and just spoon feed him all the way."

"Sam, we are not going to send a mostly normal guy into to be our fall guy. If Jones finds out that we're ripping him off, he could end up dead." And while I personally wouldn't be too troubled with that, dealing with dead body can be a real pain in the ass.

I felt a stab above my eye. There was that headache again. "Mike, why don't you call Fi and just see if she knows anyone? I have to get ready for my meeting, but keep me posted." I closed my phone and started dialling Fi's number when she walked through the door.

"Well, your mom's getting Kim settled into your old room and I told her to hide all of her medication in the closet. So have you come up with a plan for tonight, because I'm really looking forward to starting my new job." She smiled and I wished that she could be normal and have a job like a lawyer or something. But no, with Fi, there only jobs are gun runner, bomb cooker, or pseudo-whore.

"Fi, we need someone to be your 'client' for tonight. I know you could handle having a real customer, but to keep the body count low, let's just find some stooge to hire you will I get Clara. Do you know anybody that would look convincing?" She thought about it for a few minutes and then this big beautiful smile lit up her face and, even before she said it, I knew what she was thinking. Because it had been in the back of my mind as well.

"Michael, why don't you hire me and Clara at the same time?"


End file.
